Candy Tins for Enclosures April 19, 2009
Posted by N9IK in : projects , add a commentThe ubiquitous Altoids (and other candies) tin. A widely used enclosure for amateur radio builders and many, many other hobbyists, adventurers and professionals. Not to mention consumers of mints. My own junk box holds something like thirty or forty tins, most from Altoids or Blizzard’s Bones brand mints, and cover the gamut of shapes and sizes. The tins from Blizzard’s Bones, for example, are shaped somewhat like dog bones.
BLIZZARD’S BONES®
Don’t like mints or candies? Just want an empty tin? Do you want a tin with no “advertising”? Want to start “fresh” (ahem, pun intended) with no graphics? There are a number of sources for bare, unpainted tins. The source that I’ve purchased a variety of items from is County Comm, located in Santa Clara, California. County Comm specializes in providing items to various government agencies. They have quite a few items appropriate for your’ RACES/ARES go bag, and seem to offer decent prices on most items.
Above: A couple of my kit projects from the past. An Az ScQRPions Stinger Singer frequency counter, and a FOXX-3 QRP 20 meter radio. Both of these kits are no longer available.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have no interest in, nor am I connected in any way with Altoids, Blizzard’s Bones, County Comm, or any other company or organization that is mentioned in this post, except as a customer and consumer.
Ultimate Homebrew April 28, 2008
Posted by N9IK in : projects, station, technology , add a commentWhile getting caught up with Bill – M0HBR’s podcast “Soldersmoke“, I took a look around his web site, Gadgeteer.us. There he has a video made by a French ham, Claude Paillard, call sign F2FO, showing Claude homebrewing some triode tubes. Plenty of people homebrew tube receivers and transmitters, but how many hams do you know that take homebrewing quite so far? Claude puts quite a few skills in play, and it helps that he seems to have all the right tools for the job.
[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1146720&w=425&h=350&fv=] from vodpod.com posted with vodpod
WordPress Tags: homebrew, tubes, triode, diy, videos
Turn your old lawn mower into a generator October 3, 2007
Posted by N9IK in : projects , add a commentTurn your old mower into a low cost generator.
BLT Construction September 6, 2007
Posted by N9IK in : operating, portable, projects, qrp , add a commentWell, I finally got around to completing the BLT – Balanced Line Tuner. It’s not just a balanced line tuner though; it now will tune a coax-fed antenna, and a random-wire antenna, as well as a balanced-line antenna. It was pretty simple to put together, although I had trouble a couple of times, caused by my shakiness. Following are some photos of the building process.
Tinning the PC Board
T1 core
T1 secondary winding (wind this first)
T1 completed
T1 mounted on PC Board
The completed PC Board
L1 wound on core. L2 & L3 are wound on the same core
Completed PC Board and Toroid (L1 L2 & L3)
Front panel connectors
Rear panel connectors
Wiring the panels
Completed. Front view. Crappy paint job.
BLT completed. Rear panel. Crappy paint job.
BLT Kit arrived. August 28, 2007
Posted by N9IK in : portable, projects, qrp , add a commentWell, the BLT kit finally arrived yesterday. Yippee! I did a parts inventory last night, and found some discrepancies from what the documentation says should be there.
- R4=1 K ohm 1/4 Watt resister. Received a 410 ohm resistor.
- 4 rubber feet. Missing.
- 8 1/4″ x 4-40 undercut flathead screws. Missing. But, I think this is due to there being a different enclosure than shown in the docs.
A couple of other gotchas:
- The enclosure is different from that pictured in the documentation. It is a little dirty and is scratched from the bending process.
- The PCB has “hair” – fiberglass fibers at least an 1/8th inch long – along the edges. It needs to be sanded off.
A good plus:
- The extra parts are included and the enclosure is already drilled for the “mod” that adds the ability to use a coax feed line or a balanced line antenna, and not just a balanced line feed. Great! I was planning on doing this mod anyway.
It turns out that aside from the missing rubber feet, I do have all of the appropriate parts. Here’s what Doug said in his email to me:
Thor, the parts list has not been updated to match the new enclosure. The 70 ohm resistor is an improvement over the 1K as it makes the LED righter and easier to see.
By the way, the price is going to go up on the kit soon due to the improvements and additions of the switch and the extra BNC. Also the new case is bigger and easier to work with. Please let me know what you thin of the changes.
Thanks Doug
As for the case, I think I’ll paint it anyway, and I can easily find appropriate rubber feet locally. And if I didn’t paint it, it would probably get pretty beat up looking in time anyway, since I don’t exactly use kid gloves with portable gear. I look forward to getting this kit built and to put it to use. Updates to follow.
Rock Mite 40 Complete August 22, 2007
Posted by N9IK in : portable, projects, qrp , add a commentI’ve finally gotten around to completing the Rock-Mite 40 transceiver kit. It was fun to put together, in spite of my problems with my shaking hands and the difficulty it causes with putting components and wires on the board and connectors. Below are a few photos:
The RM board is fully “stuffed”, waiting for wires.
In this picture of the RM at board level, you can see that I’ve used SIP sockets as sockets for the crystals, allowing me to change out the crystals with 7.040 MHz crystals, which are for the other 40meter QRP calling frequency.
Another board level close-up.
Here some of the wires have been added. The crystals have been removed, and you can clearly see the SIP sockets at lower left and upper right on the board.
To fit the FCC’s newer (June 2004) spurious emission requirement, a 150pF cap and a 3.3 uH RF choke should be installed in series between the center conductor of the antenna connector and the board. The RF choke lead would not fit through the through-hole on the board, so I soldered it directly to the antenna connector, and put the capacitor on the board. The antenna connector and the caps position on the board are close enough that the leads of the choke and capacitor can be soldered directly together with out using the coax. Eventually, I ended up breaking the lead off of the choke, and since I don’t have a replacement I removed it and the cap and used coax to connect the board to the antenna connector. I’ll put the choke and cap back on when I can.
It’s a tight fit with the board and connectors all wired and installed in the Mighty Box enclosure. Here you can see that the leads for the two crystals (lower left and upper right) needed to be bent over so that the crystals would fit. If they had been soldered directly to the board instead of using sockets, they would probably have been fine standing up straight.
Ready for the bottom cover to be screwed into place.
Front view of the completed RockMite. Left to right, audio gain, switch, phones. The switch is used to toggle off-set frequency and control the internal keyer.
Rear view of the completed RockMite. Left to right: key, antenna, power.
If/when I get a clear label cartridge for my Brother P-Touch labeler, I will add labels to the RM case.
Now, to make some contacts!
Rock Mite inventory update August 10, 2007
Posted by N9IK in : projects , add a commentI noted before that I sent an email to Dave at Small Wonder Labs about the missing pieces. He did reply a couple of days ago, so I guess I was wrong about his being gone for awhile. Thank goodness! Anyway, he said that he’d get the parts out to me right away.
Rock Mite inventory August 7, 2007
Posted by N9IK in : projects , add a commentI finally got around to inventorying the parts for the Rock Mite kit this evening. I cleaned up the area that I am going to work at, which is a corner of a desk – not much room. I also found my lamp/magnifier, and organized my tool kits and some other items.
The Rock Mite kit is missing a couple of items:
- two 8-pin sockets
- one 47uF electrolytic cap, low-profile case. Received a 220uF cap instead.
I sent Dave at Small Wonder Labs an email, but I seem to remember that he was going to be away for a bit. I might already have the 8-pin sockets, and I can probably get the low-profile locally, so I won’t wait for Dave to get back.
Rock-Mite update July 30, 2007
Posted by N9IK in : portable, projects, qrp, station , add a commentThe Rock-Mite transceiver kit that I ordered arrived in today’s post. I’m anxious to get it built and to make my first QSO (contact) with it. I would have built it tonight, but I’m out of solder, and need to go shopping for a few things.
Speaking of shopping, I ordered a BLT kit tonight. No, not the kind you make with bacon, but the tuner used to tune balanced line antennas.
So, my portable & QRP rig will be made up of the Rock-Mite, a BLT, a doublet antenna and, if I can find one locally, a 7 amp-hour 12 volt battery.
The Mity Box, mighty fast July 23, 2007
Posted by N9IK in : portable, projects, qrp, station , add a commentVery fast service from American Morse Equipment. I ordered the “Mity Box” enclosure for the “Rock-Mite” radio from them on Friday, and it arrived with today’s mail. It’s a beautiful little enclosure, CNC milled out of an aircraft aluminum billet, and anodized blue. All the holes for connections and controls are pre-drilled; it’s completely ready to mount the board and chassis-mount components.